In responding to the heinous shooting in a Quebec City mosque last January, Premier Philippe Couillard made a series of comments that seemed to be coming from the heart. “Spoken words matter. Written words matter,” he said, “they can of course express an idea, but they can hurt. They can hurt very much. We should all be cognizant of that.”

This is particularly true with respect to the words we use with our young people. Such words can reproduce existing attitudes that harm, divide and exclude, or they can give young people the tools to build understanding and empathy. As a teacher, I am acutely aware of the heavy responsibility I have regarding the words I use with my students.

This is particularly true with respect to the words we use with our young people. Such words can reproduce existing attitudes that harm, divide and exclude, or they can give young people the tools to build understanding and empathy. As a teacher, I am acutely aware of the heavy responsibility I have regarding the words I use with my students.

While there are numerous problems with the textbook, it seems fitting, with the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 29 mosque shooting approaching, to focus here on the way Muslims are depicted.

As historian and literary theorist Edward Said identified long ago in his classic book Orientalism, Islamophobic stereotypes tend to be centred around associations with terrorism and misogyny. Sadly, rather than helping students to deconstruct these stereotypes that have been so harmful to Quebec citizens of Muslim faith, the textbook reinforces them.

On Page 301, we find a section titled The Threat of Terrorism that sends the message that terrorism is exclusively associated with Muslims. The only examples given are an Islamist terrorist organization and a Muslim country. Meanwhile, Marc Lépine’s massacre of 14 women at École Polytechnique is not mentioned in this section. Where it is mentioned on Page 323, the act is described as “premeditated” and “politically motivated,” however the word “terrorism” appears nowhere. And not only are the FLQ not described as terrorists, the words with which they are described are euphemistic. On Page 258 we learn of Pierre Laporte being “found dead.” The perpetrators of this crime are then described not as murderers or terrorists, but as “abductors.”

On Pages 321 and 322, we find an extremely one-sided presentation of the so-called debate on “religious neutrality.” We learn that some believe that certain religious accommodations are “contrary to the values of Quebec society,” but nowhere do we learn about those who believe that inclusion and respect for religious freedom and human rights are Quebec values, enshrined in Quebec’s own human rights charter.

No mention is made of the extent to which these debates played on ignorant stereotypes about Muslim women, nor of the dramatic rise in xenophobic hate crimes targeting Muslims, and particularly Muslim women, provoked by this public debate. Once again, an opportunity to deconstruct ignorant stereotypes and promote an inclusive vision of society is missed, and instead harmful stereotypes about a vulnerable minority are reinforced.

Problematic depictions of the Muslim community are only the tip of the iceberg. Quebec’s new history program depicts black Quebecers, members of Quebec’s various immigrant communities, anglophones and Indigenous people in problematic ways.

There is an urgent need for the government to immediately go back to the drawing board to produce a history curriculum that is reflective of the sorts of values articulated by our premier and other political leaders in the days following the Quebec City massacre. If, as the premier said, “words can hurt, words can be knives slashing at people’s consciousness,” then we must be particularly vigilant about the words we are exposing our young people to.